Déjà Vu: You've Never Seen Something Quite Like This Before

My review for Tony Scott's masterpiece, Déjà Vu, is now up at Cinelogue. A digital version of Vertigo, Scott's film probes issues of obsession, fractured identity and time travel, always focusing on the emotion over narrative. It represents the apotheosis of Scott's poetic chaos, taking his complicated, arrhythmic preference for the subjective, stream-of-consciousness close-up and incorporating it into the always-corkscrewing nature of time travel. Plot holes abound, but Scott masterfully controls the aspects of the film he wants to stress most. For all the film's talk of terrorism and its open acknowledgment of such travesties as Oklahoma City, 9/11 and Katrina, Déjà Vu is largely apolitical. Instead, it gives us the alternative to the false closure of revenge: the desire to go back and prevent the whole thing from happening, saving hundreds, maybe thousands, and especially that one person you'd give anything to see again.

Please check out my review at Cinelogue.